Windows NT to Windows 98

M

MissRibena

Guest
Hi everyone

I have a PC with nt4 on it. I want to format and put win98 on it. The win98 CD won't run automatically. I've tried running the set-up file from the dos prompt (on the start menu) but it doesn't recocognize the name (so it says).

I thought I'd try running the file from "real" DOS but how do I get it to boot in MS-DOS? I think I used to know this but my dos memory is becoming ever rustier.

Thanks a million
Rebecca
 
I don't think that you can "downgrade" from NT to 98. In particular if the disk is NTFS formatted then it will probably not work since 98 uses FAT/FAT32 only. Running the 98 installation from the NT DOS command shell is not the same as running it from "real" DOS. You will probably have to boot into DOS and run the installation from there unless the CD is a bootable one and you change your BIOS settings to allow booting from CD if necessary. Otherwise you can download various DOS boot floppy images if necessary. Try here for example:

bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
 
Dont mean to be cheeky ...........

But do you really want to do this

NT is nice & stable and all of that not like W/98

But then you know that by now dont you

Sorry Miss

I'll go now
 
I know

Don't worry. I'm only following orders, it's not really my idea. I have more to be at, but certain non-IT people (who sit directly opposite me, drive me crazy, but alas pay the wages) won't listen to sense :)

I'm ploughing on with it though and although it's a bit early to say and no doubt there will be 10 million bumps on the road yet, I've gotten NT off and w98 is re-formatting the c drive for me.

Rebecca
 
win98

dont be too concerned . there is nothing wrong with win 98 se or win me for that matter . you dont need much of a machine by todays standards for them and most soft/hardware is compatible and is easy to find . they might crash every now and then but when they do will almost certainly reboot without any damage and any problems that arise can usually be fixed.
nt4 on the other hand is:-
very picky about which hardware it likes,
only suitable for business environments,
and prone to suddenly giving you the "blue screen of death" . for which 9/10 times you have to reinstall the whole operating system
 
Win 98

I have kept w98 on my home pc. Not as prone to hacker attack as win nt /2000/xp. And strangely enough most hw suppliers are still providing drivers for it. Recently bought a firewire card so that miss penang can download to her IPOD. w98 drivers included with HW.
p.
 
> there is nothing wrong with win 98 se or win me for that matter

One problem with it is that as far as Microsoft is concerned it has reached its end of life and they are no longer issuing fixes/patches for bugs and security holes in it which could be a problem going forward. Another is that it contains a lot of 16 bit components which are kludged to work with the 32 bit components that form most of the rest of the system - but don't always do so reliably. In contrast NT, W2K and XP are 32 bit from the ground up and consequently generally more stable and secure.
 
!

It might actually work out less expensive for MissRibena's employees to buy a PC with win98 pre-installed.
 
!

I'd say retail PCs with W98 or other "legacy" Windows OSs installed are rare if not non-existent these days. As far as I know MS licensing requires OEMs to sell only W2K or XP preinstalled these days.
 
Windows 98

Whatever about the pros and cons (the major one from our perspective was the USB compability situation), Win98 is now up and running on the ex-NT PC. I got a bootdisk with KillDisk to wipe the harddrive of partitions and NTFS. And then loaded on win98 without any problems. Had a bit of hassle trying to find the right drivers for sound cards, modems etc. but the job is oxo now.

Thanks for everyone's help.
Rebecca
 
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